I had written earlier in the year that we were hopeful for a new album this year and new song ‘Go To Hell’ is the strongest indication yet, bright Robyn-esque track that features Lorely Rodriguez doing a tropical percussive pop vibe while having a ‘go-to-hell’ singularly minded disposition.

There are plenty of albums to look forward to in 2017 and here are just a few of them which don’t have release dates yet. I’ve also included a few which we likely won’t see this year – just so you’re prepared. See also – My top New Artists of 2017.

Possible Date: Summer 2017

It’s been three years since the Leeds band released their second album This Is All Yours, so time is ripe for another in 2017. Last August, drummer Thom Sonny Green told NME, the band had loads of ideas, which wasn’t exactly – “songs are written, we’re recording them and they’re sounding awesome,” but after a period where Green released a solo record, bassist Gus Unger-Hamilton opened a café in east London and singer Joe Newman featured on a Clams Casino track with Lil B, there are rumblings.

The band have posted pics from the studio including ones at Abbey Road where they were recording strings only last week.The band have announced festival dates this summer so a good guess would be around the time of June, when they start.

Caribou / Daphni

Possible Date: Late 2017 but more than likely 2018

Three years on from a career apex record Our Love and a song which dominated the summer and the rest of the year. Dan Snaith is DJing as Daphni a lot this year including Coachella so a new album from Caribou doesn’t feel likely at this moment (maybe a Daphni 12″ / single release though?)

Daniel Avery

Possible Date: Autumn 2017

After last year’s DJ Kicks, 2017 looks to be the year that Daniel Avery follows up his superb 2013 album Drone Logic, according to this tweet.

Possible Date: Summer / Autumn 2017

Loreley Rodriguez’ debut Empress Of album Of Me was followed up with a killer once-off single and one of the best songs of 2016 collaboration with Blood Orange – ‘Best Of You’, as well as one with Pional, so I really want a followup in 2017. This is more hopeful than concrete, though signs are good.

I swear making another album is an emotional roller coaster:not so much making the music but playing it for other people

Flying Lotus

Possible Date: Late 2017 but looking like 2018

A new album was promised in 2016 from the Brainfeeder boss but Stephen Ellison was working on his feature-length film debut Kuso (starring Hannibal Buress and Tim Heidecker), which will premiere at Sundance this year. He also scored a short too. It looks like we’re getting V, a Captain Murphy record some time this year, as ‘Crowned’ featured in the recent Adult Swim Singles club. As for Fly Lo, a Kuso some songs on the soundtrack may be all we get.

Future Islands

Possible Date: Summer / Autumn 2017

Three years on from their breakthrough album Singles, things are heating up with some dates at festivals like Bonaroo, Panorama and Coachella. Last year, Sam T. Herring collaborated with Badbadnotgood. Their last music was single ‘The Chase’ in 2015. An album is definitely on the way very very soon.

Grimes

Possible Date: Summer / Autumn 2017

Grimes’ followup to Art Angels was halfway there last April ( “more chill vibes, downtempos, synth-y shit. That makes it sound boring. It’s not boring.”) and in a November interview, she said it would be “slow and reflective”.

“I’m really vibing on making something really slow and gorgeous that just breathes, and has room to breathe,” she explained. “I feel like my work has always been fast paced, kinetic, and almost just manic and I feel like for me the hardest thing I can do is make something that’s slow and heavy.”

Grizzly Bear

Possible Date: Spring 2017

Come on already. The Grizzlies’ last album was 2012’s Shields and a few years before, Jay Z and Beyoncé were showing up to their shows and a lot has changed in music since American indie folk was the dominant genre of choice, However in October, a tweet saying “Album 90 percent done. Last update until you hear it,” was posted. Any day now?

Holy Ghost!

Possible Date: Autumn 2017

DFA Records’ disco dons Holy Ghost! will surely followup last year’s Crime Cutz EP with a third album, a followup to Dynamics. Alex Frankel released a solo EP last year too. I’ve a soft spot for these two.

Jon Hopkins

Possible Date: Summer 2017

The followup to 2013’s Immunity is due this year according to Jon’s reply to a fan on Twitter. Yes. In the meantime, Hopkins plays piano on a track on the new Bonobo record.

Kelela

Possible Date: Spring 2017

A followup to 2013’s Cut For Me mixtape after 2015’s Hallucination EP is on the cards (check out this Song Exploder about ‘Rewind’). In an interview with Dazed, Arca, Jam City, and Bok Bok are to be reprising their role as co-producers and Kelsey Lu, one of my picks for new artists of 2017 guests.

LCD Soundsystem

Possible Date: Summer or Autumn 2017

After last year’s triumphant live return, that promised LCD Soundsystem album is indeed on the way as James Murphy told someone on Facebook this weekin response – “Sure. still working on it, but it’ll be done soon. winter tends to mess with my voice, so finishing the thing drags out.”

Le Galaxie

Possible Date: Autumn 2017

The Dublin electro band’s third album is done and it likely to get a worldwide releasearound September time. Former Fight Like Apes’ singer MAy Kay is set to feature on six tracks too.

Little Dragon

Possible Date: Summer / Autumn 2017

The followup to Nabuma Rubberband from 2014 looks to be coming this year from the Swedish band. They are playing Coachella so that’s a good sign.

Mount Kimbie

Possible Date: Spring / Summer 2017

Mount Kimbie played some new songs at Metropolis Festival in November so it’s a safe bet a new one is coming to followup the brilliant 2013 album Cold Spring Fault Less Youth.

St. Vincent

Possible Date: Summer / Autumn 2017

Annie Clark promises “the deepest, boldest work I’ve ever done” on her new record which is inspired by the topsy-turvy world events of the last year. “I feel the playing field is really open for creative people to do whatever you want, and that risk will be rewarded – especially now that we have such high stakes from a political and geopolitical standpoint,” he told Guitar World (while managing to get a dig in on the cover). The last St. Vincent album came out in 2014.

Just in time for Christmas, the Loose Joints Podcast is back with a look at the best of 2016. The podcast features Nialler9 and Sally Cinnamon talking to a guest about the music they love: old and new.

On this episode, singer and TV presenter May Kay joins us to talk about what floated our boats this year. We also talk about Fight Like Apes, MayKay’s band who just played their last ever show last week along with her experiences at presenting Other Voices.

Follow the Nialler9 New Music playlist on Spotify. This week’s additions include new songs from all the below along with Civil Civic, Zack De La Rocha, Soulé, Kelly Lee Owens & more. This is only a selection of new music – dig into more.

1.

Junior Boys – ‘Yes’

A banger from a new EP Kiss Me All Night.

Junior Boys follow up last year’s Big Black Coat album with a new four track EP. Leading the charge is ‘Yes’ a pulsating electronic synth jam that hits hard. The EP also features a cover of John Martyn’s ‘Some People Are Crazy’ and a Prince-inspired title track.

3.

Kelly Lee Owens – ‘CBM’

Daniel Avery’s collaborator continues to impress solo.

Doing little with lots, Kelly Lee Owens’ infuses throbbing electronics with a voice familiar to Daniel Avery fans (she featured on Drone Logic) of “the colors, the beauty, and the motion.” It’s from the Welsh producer’s forthcoming EP Oleic on Smalltown Supersound. Earlier this year she covered Aaliyah.

“C.B.M stands for Colours, Beauty, Motion,” Owens told The FADER. “It’s related to the cosmic perspective of our planet. I was inspired by astronauts interpretations of the ‘Overview’ effect – which “is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts and cosmonauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from orbit or from the lunar surface.” The music represents in some way the motion of traveling around the planet at speed, that slightly lucid & disorientating experience as well as it being awe inspiring and maybe leaving you changed for good.”

4.

Peter Gabriel – ‘The Veil’

A new song taken from the movie Snowden.

Peter Gabriel’s new song was written for the upcoming Oliver Stone movie Snowden about you guessed it, Edward Snowden.

Gabriel worked with music supervisor Budd Car and was inspired by the story of Snowden. “As we become so visible in the digital world and leave an endless trail of data behind us, exactly who has our data and what they do with it becomes increasingly important,” said Gabriel.

The 66 year-old musician came with an experimental electronic song that harks back to his work on 1980’s Melt album yet still sounds current, both lyrically and musically.

5.

Windings – ‘You’re Dead’

Limerick rockers return with an atmospheric single.

Windings are set to release the long overdue followup to 2012 Choice-nominated I Am Not The Crow at the end of September on Out On A Limb. Be Honest and Fear Not follows on from the dark and dank double singles ‘Stray Dogs’ and ‘Helicopters’. First single You’re Dead contains more light but not much as Steve Ryan sings ‘finding pain where once was pleasure, and pleasure in the abiding of pain”.

6.

Pional feat. Empress Of – ‘The Way That You Like’

A strong collaboration from the Barcelona producer’s new EP When Love Hurts.

Forthcoming on Ninja Tunes imprint Counter Records (September 30th), Pional and Empress Of get together to create a mesh of machines and human. Pional’s electronics surgically build through small synth stabs and rhythmic builds but Lorely Rodriguez brings heart to the tune. Do absolutely listen to ‘Casualty’ too.

7.

Hounded feat. Bamiyah – ‘Feel So Right’

Aussie electronic pop.

Australian producer Hounded put together this tropical-house tinged electronic R&B song with Californian singer/songwriter Bamiyah and it is countering the autumnal weather inbound for me today. It’s reminscent of Nao and Mura Masa’s work together. The song is out on Majestic Casual

1.

Blood Orange – ‘Best To You’

The former Lightspeed Champion and recent songwriter/producer of great records from Sky Ferreira and Solange has released some great music under his Blood Orange name but with new album Freetown Sound, Hynes’ moves from liminal to minimal soulful sleek pop that addresses race, class and feminism.

Nelly Furtado, Carly Rae Jepsen, BEA1991, Debbie Harry, Kindness, Ian Isiah, Kelsey Lu, Jason Arce, Ava Raiin, P, Porches, Starchild and Patrick Wimberly of Chairlift all feature but easy standout right now is the Empress Of-sung ‘Best To You’ an alluring melancholic pop record to dance around to against the push and pull of desire in a fading relationship.

2.

Clams Casino & Kelela – ‘A Breath Away’

Clams has largely ditched the cloud for precision production.

Having already given us a grade-A banger with Vince Staples, Clams Casino has turned to his softer side on this collaboration with LA R&B singer Kelela from new album 32 Levels. Kelela is the owner of one of my favourite voices in music and while there are cloudy elements to Clams’ production on ‘A Breath Away’, Kelela punctures it with an emotive soulful beauty that few can match. It’s almost pop.

32 Levels is out on July 18th and also features Alt-J’s Joe Newman, A$AP Rocky, Lil B and Sam T Herring of Future Islands.

For her forthcoming album, My Woman (September 2nd on Jagjaguar), Olsen is playing a part, in song and video, versions of herself and others. ‘Intern’ dramatically suggested a transition but ‘Shut Up Kiss Me’ draws you in to that world with a song that asks yet is in control of the situation. Olsen’s voice is at her most authoritative, expressive and artistic.

4.

James Vincent McMorrow – ‘Rising Water’

New R&B stripes with production from Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’ producer.

The song is R&B soul-inspired with new textures in the form of throwback synths, a motorik bassline. McMorrow’s falsetto remains but there’s a refreshing vitality to it.

The song was produced by Nineteen85, who produced Drake records like ‘One Dance’ and ‘Hotline Bling’ along with OVO acts dvsn and Majid Jordan.

5.

I Am The Cosmos – ‘Letting It Go’

Dublin synth-lovers come back tougher. Three years on from the release of Monochrome, the debut album from Ross Turner and Cian Murphy as I Am The Cosmos and the presence of its analogue synthesizer dance music in my regular listening has never diminished.

Where Monochrome was inspired by a single song from the Japanese band Mariah, a band who have inspired and moved crate diggers and music outliers alike, the band’s new material, live in recent shows, had much more muscle.

‘Letting Go’ echoes that difference in their approach. Following the band’s remix of Girls Names last year, ‘Letting It Go’ is all pulsing synthesizer electronics and swallowing Joy Division vocals that itself, start to lose control, echoing the title.

6.

Orlando Volcano Ft. Gemma Dunleavy – “Mixed Messages”

Dublin boy finds his feet in the Big Apple.

After being accepted to the Red Bull Music Academy in New York, the producer Orlando Volcano moved to the city for good three years ago and has spent his musical time exploring global underground dance sounds. His latest EP on London’s Liminal Sounds features the tropical dancehall of Mixed Messages with vocals by the effervescent Gemma Dunleavy (Murlo, White Collar Boy, Clu).

15.

Roisin Murphy

Hairless Toys

A peerless singer makes a fearless record.

Roisin Murphy’s third album is a sophisticated and layered album that furthers the career of an outlier and a creative artist, making accessible but avant-garde music that draws from pop, dance, disco and jazz.

From the elongated elegance of ‘Exploitation’ to the spooked ‘Gone Fishing’ to the warped ballad of ‘Unputdownable’ to the poppy bass-slung groove of ‘Evil Eyes’, Murphy creates duality throughout: intimate and anamorphic, detailed yet sparse, Glamourous yet grubby, Loungey yet dancy. Murphy remains the magnet at the centre of Hairless Toys as she has been throughout her career. Where-ever she goes, I will follow.

14.

Grimes

Art Angels

This is what 21st Century pop music is supposed to sound like.

Claire Boucher’s followup to 2012’s breakthrough Grimes album Visions is wildly different. Art Angels is the result of three years of growth, touring, a decision to scrap a previous album and an hardening of artistic resolve. Grimes’ has often talked about her love of pop music and on Art Angels she’s made her own version of it with sugar-rushing rhythms, bubble-pop melodies and bright instrumentation. The album feels like it has its own internal logic and palette and inherent in its DNA, is Grimes’ own split personalities, adept at pairing up for a screaming match with Korean rapper Aristophanes on ‘Scream’, delivering clattering guitar pop on ‘Flesh Without Blood’, roping in Janelle Monae for a EDM-style banger and my personal favourite ‘World Princess Part II’, an electro pop crescendo. Boucher continues to write her own story.

13.

Le Galaxie

The Dublin electro band have made an album of joyous bangers.

For their second full-length, Le Galaxie enlisted the help of producer Erik Brouchek to solidify what most Irish music-loving people know from seeing the band live, that Le Galaxie are the best band for delivering gigantic song-led bangers built on dance music dynamism with live instruments.

Le Club feels like a victory lap, the band’s retro neon-electro having found new sinewy rhythms and strident sounds. Songs like ‘Put The Chain On’, ‘Streetheart’, ‘Le Club’, ‘Lucy Is Here’ and “Carmen’ already feel like modern Irish classics, the soundtrack to many a great festival night and gig. The new version of the Le Galaxie essential, the uplifting ‘Love System’ adds a sax-solo for extra celebration. A trip to Le Club is always fun.

12.

Empress Of

Me

Lorely Rodriguez’s personal yet brisk electronic pop debut.

With the graduation to a self-produced debut album, Lorely Rodriguez also makes the leap from pleasing hazy synth pop to a gilded form of dance pop. Rodriguez’s lyrics address what it’s like to be a young woman in 2015.

Rarely does a personal album brim with so much danceable briskness. Me makes use of of pleasing discombobulating rhythmic pop sequences, buzzing synths, bouncing bass, drum machine stabs and an clearly elevated confidence. No longer covered in gauze, Empress Of’s talent is greater than was initially suggested.

11.

Girl Band

The Dublin band have made the highly-strung album of the year.

There weren’t more uncompromising sonic albums made in 2015 than this one and while it took its toll on its creators, their efforts have not gone unappreciated.

Holding Hands With Jamie is a bare psychosis, the breakdown of Dara Kiely soundtracked by dissonant, piercing and pulsing noise. Kiely spends howling into the pressurised turbulent wall of noise, fending off life expectations and minutiae.

The band match his intensity spectacularly with guitars that whirr and buzz like nasty synthesizers, drums that engulf the room in a live fashion and low-end that wipes the floor and shits on it afterward for good measure. The harshness of it all is a suitably foil for the discombobulating frame of mind that Kiely displays throughout. It sounds like post-punk, it sounds like garage-rock, it sounds like no-wave, it sounds like dirty bleedin’ techno.

The coiled wrestle between confrontation and escapism, both in the music and in the lyrics, is what makes Holding Hands With Jamie such an uncomfortable yet singularly brilliant album. That it uses the familiar language of rock music to do so makes it one of the albums of the year.

The music of Lorely Rodriguez has previously come with a pleasing electronic haze to it. Early Empress Of releases were gauzy, booming ’80s-inspired alternative synth pop.

The transition on the Brooklyn-based lady’s debut album Me is startling enough even though it shares some of the same qualities. The dance pop aspect of her music is now to the fore but in every way – as a vocalist, as a producer and a lyricist Rodriguez’s music has lifted to a new level.

Largely written on a writing retreat in Mexico, Me strides forward with purpose. It’s a shift that feels equivalent to Grimes when she debuted Visions in 2012, an artist making a leap into a larger space with ease. Like Grimes, Rodriguez is also the sole person responsible for the music on Me.

And like Grimes, Rodriguez’s lyrics address what it’s like to be a young woman in 2015. 2015’s other great track about the male gaze, Braids’ ‘Miniskirt’ was more brutal yet Rodriguez offers an independent rebuttal – “I’m fending for myself when you still call me pretty.”

On piano-propped falsetto-featuring highlight ‘Make Up’, she praises the closeness with a lover – “Shake me off the branch and take the biggest bite / Kiss off all my lipstick / I don’t have to fix it.” On ‘Need Myself’, it’s the opposite, personal happiness over a relationship floundering – “Being happy with you or be bad about.” Mostly the lyrics address the good and bad of relationship, the positives on ‘Everything Is You’, the cynical on ‘Water Water’ (“You’re just a heart to break, easy to manipulate”) and the wonderment on ‘How Do You Do It’ (“I forgot that I could let someone fulfill me”).

Rarely does a personal album brim with so much danceable briskness. Me makes use of of pleasing discombobulating rhythmic pop sequences, buzzing synths, bouncing bass, drum machine stabs and an clearly elevated confidence. No longer covered in gauze, Empress Of’s talent is greater than was initially suggested.

Her music then was gauzy and interesting: synth-driven, alternative with some pop nods. last year’s ‘Realize You’ suggested transition, For her new track ‘Water Water’, self-written and produced by Rodriguez from her forthcoming debut album for Terrible Records / XL, moves thing into a hyper-real place: sounding a bit like Holly Herndon in production terms but with a direct pop clarity.

The song was inspired by her time at a writing retreat in Mexico where she thought about the most basic element – “Water, water is for washing / Vino Tinto is for drinking,” she sings. “All the simple silhouettes in here / Make me nervous in my insides / Take my outsides for a ride / Any shape that you can twist them into tonight.”

She’s supporting Jamie xx and Jon Hopkins and Florence & The Machine, playing a NYC 5-night residency as well as playing The Great Escape next month in Brighton.

A roundup of 15 tracks featured on and off the blog that have been getting the new music veins pumping in the last seven days. Some of them have already featured in the New Music section and others are new tracks from previously-featured artists Empress Of, REID, Ifan Dafydd, Bibio, Wise Blood, Tropics, Koreless and Nancy Elizabeth. This may become a regular thing if people are into it. Easy listening:(more…)